


It Had to be You

by ButterflyGhost



Series: City on a Hill [2]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gender-Neutral Runner Five, Other, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, spoilers season 1 to 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 02:09:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: "I try to kill it all away, but I remember everything."Five is in trouble. Sam is always there to help.





	It Had to be You

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers and angst all the way through to season six. Five is having a REALLY bad apocalypse. Do not judge Five for any selfish or conflicted choices that Five may or may not indulge in! Besides, it could work out.
> 
> Possibly. Maybe...
> 
> Well, we can hope.

_‘Do you ever think that memory is a curse? In the end, everything reminds you of something else.’_

_Moonchild._

Everything reminds me of you. Across the dining table, Sam smiles down at baby Sarah and his black sweep of silken hair touches her face. Sarah reaches up with a fat baby fist and pulls it, laughing as he groans and pretends that it hurts. His face dips down to hers, and he plants a proud paternal kiss on her forehead, then stands, swooping her through the air and cradling her against his shoulder. One hand cups her head as he begins to pace the mess hall, crooning his grandmother’s lullaby in Chinese.

They are not like us, Sam and his baby. Beauty and innocence; they both have it in their different ways. You expect them in a child, less so in an adult man. Sam has had to fight to preserve his innocence. It's a choice he makes each morning. He's not a fool. He's not naive. He is nothing like you, and you shall have no part of his daughter at all. You’re gone. You can’t hurt the people I love anymore. And yet – I watch Sam dance with his daughter, and I remember. You make me remember before I can make myself forget again.

I remember your blue-eyed smile as you bent over me, that first time. I remember the tickle as your tumble of blonde curls brushed my face. I remember that your lips were as soft and plush as they looked and that you tasted of honey and dandelion tea. I remember remembering Sarah’s crooked grin, my Sarah. My Sarah Smith with her wiry red hair showing streaks of grey, her freckled face windburned and her lips chapped. She looked her age, my Sarah, and you never did.

It had to be you. Why did it have to be _you?_ If someone was going to live inside me and drive me mad, why you and not Sarah? Sarah was bramble-weed and nettles, kudzu. Nobody could get past those defences. You were still a little girl playing princess. Dog-daisies, roses, pansies. Sarah fought for the pure, fierce fun of it. You danced like Ophelia, weaving flowers into your hair. _‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray, love, remember me.’_

No. I don’t want to remember you. Go away. Sarah. Let Sarah be the one who lives in me. Please. Sarah, whose life was written on her skin, sketched in the fine lines around her eyes. Sarah who tasted of salt, and sweat, and woodsmoke. I remember her – I remember –

I remember the grief and guilt as you kissed me, as you kissed her remembered taste right out of my mouth. And then I don’t remember anything at all.

“Are you alright, Five?” Sam’s voice breaks into my silence, and I blink, back in the room. He is standing next to me, baby Sarah passed off to one of her mothers. I must have been out for a while. I duck my head and avoid his gaze, give a brief nod. Sam drops a hand on my shoulder. “You know if you ever need to talk....” He lets the offer trail off. Talking is the last thing I want to do, and Sam knows it. He clears his throat uncomfortably. Before he starts apologising I manage a brief smile and pat his hand where it rests on my shoulder. I want to reassure him, but how? What could I say? ‘She made me love her?’

It hits me again, with a cold sweat of nausea. _Oh, God. You bitch. You made me love you._

“Five?”

My hand clenches against Sam’s, even though I can’t see him anymore. He’s there. I know he’s there, the solid strength of him always just behind me. I want to say ‘thank you’ for all the times he’s watched my back, but the wrong words try to force themselves out; my voicebox seizes and clicks. Oh, God. You nearly made me say it. _‘She made me –’_ all the ways that sentence can end are unspeakable. I don’t want anyone to know the things you made me do.

“Five? Can you hear me?” That’s Maxine. I need to get out of here, or I’ll draw a crowd. I’m in public for God’s sake. I try to move, but I’m frozen to my seat.

I remember the sweet honey taste of your tongue. I remember the curve of your lips as your mouth touched mine. I was happy, so _damn_ happy to be with you, even though -

“... I never loved you. I told you that. I’m telling you that. Get out.”

“Five?”

_Oh God, don’t let them hear._

“Sam, get Paula, she has more experience than me with...”

_Oh God, get out of me. We’re creating a scene. They can see you in me, for God’s sake, get out._

I can’t get you out. Your smell, your sound, your touch – everything about your dead-self remains. You’re in me. You crawl like ants under my skin. I’d scratch you out if I could find you.

“Hey, hey, Five.” I blink, and it’s Paula. She’s crouched down right in front of me, gripping my wrists. I look down, and there’s blood on my hands. I pull back, and she tightens her grip, gazing directly into my eyes. “If I let go will you stop scratching?”

Scratching?

Oh. Of course. Some nights I wake up frightened from a dream and think if you stood in front of me again I’d claw my own eyes out rather than see. Bad enough to hear and remember. But I can’t let anyone else know that I feel like - that I want - I mustn’t let them know that I - What? I just – they can’t, I can’t let them know.

But they do know. They know something. They’re all looking at me. Paula, Maxine and Sam. Others in the room outside of my field of vision - I feel them around me, but I'm scared to turn my head. I don't want to see them. My friends are here, and they saw this. They saw what you did to me – do to me. I can’t even look at them.

“Five?” Maxine again. She puts her fingers on my cheek where I’ve made myself bleed. I flinch from her touch. Paula has let go of my wrists – of course, she can’t treat me – and Maxine is wincing on my behalf as she probes the scratches on my face. Sam steps back and folds his arms across his chest. I know the gesture. He’s giving himself the hug he doesn’t know how to ask for.

Look at all these people I love who can never look at me with respect again. They do love me, of course. I know that much. But now when they look at ‘Five’ they won’t see me anymore. They’ll see Moonchild’s victim. They’ll never see past that damage. All there can ever be of me now is your victim.

I never hated anyone as much as I hate you. I didn’t know how much hate there was in me until I knew you. You asked me once to tell you the truth. Do you remember? You asked if I would have loved you if you hadn’t taken my will from me. You asked if I had been attracted to you before my soul was under your command. I answered honestly; I had no choice.

 _Yes,_ I said. _Yes, I thought you were beautiful. No,_ I said. _No, I never loved you. I thought you were a fool._

More fool me.

After you were done proving to me how much I loved you I remember you telling me that I was born to love you. I believed it.

Sometimes I still do.

I’m shaking now, and speechless – it’s unspeakable, what you did, what you are still doing. The room is emptier now, except for Sam and me. I imagine someone took charge and cleared it while I was ‘having one of my episodes.’ No doubt the doctors are keeping an eye on me from afar. But for now, it’s just Sam and me. Sam has wrapped his coat around me, and his arm is firm around my shoulder. I lean into it and let my breath settle. The shadows have shifted, and the room has cooled. I should move soon, let people get on with their afternoon chores. I clear my throat and manage to look at Sam.

He doesn’t look at me as though he pities me. There is sympathy, compassion, yes, but that’s not pity. I don’t think that he thinks any less of me. But he feels too much. His eyes are shiny, the way they sometimes are when he doesn’t have the words.

Impulsively I find his hand and squeeze.

“Five?”

What can I say? He wants to understand. He wants to know what this is like. He wants to help.

I have to try. I have to try to explain at least some of this to someone. Even if I do begin with borrowed words.

“Sam,” my voice is clogged. I hope that I haven’t been crying. “Do you ever think that memory is a curse?”

“A curse?” His brow crinkles, and he tilts his head.

“In the end, everything reminds you of something else.”

"That can be a blessing too," he says.

"A blessing?"

"Yeah. I mean - like my Mum. Sarah looks kind of like her. I mean, okay, so she's not exactly white, but she's got this kind of pixie grin that Mum had. And, before Sarah came along I couldn't think of Mum without thinking about how she - how I - well. You know. And I didn't think I'd ever have a good memory of Mum again. But now, you know, Sarah." He grins. "And I think, man. Mum would have loved her. And all these good memories are coming back. So it's like if I remember Mum when I see Sarah, then maybe there's a bit of Mum still around. Like, maybe she did get to see her granddaughter. Like, as long as you remember someone, they're alive. Not like meteorfiguratively or whatever, but like some little part of them is really there." He pauses. "I didn't explain that very well. Do you know what I mean?"

 _'Oh, I know what he means,'_ you tell me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. _Not now, Moonchild._

"Five?"

I open my eyes again. I have to pull myself together. This has to stop.

"Are you alright, Five?"

I'm watching his mouth. It's not Sarah's. It's not Moonchild's. The last time someone kissed me and the time before that and the time before that it drowned out all my memories and griefs. At least for a little while.

 _You can't do this to him,_  I tell myself. _It's not fair._

 _'Make a new memory, Five.'_ Who is that? For a moment it sounds like Sarah, cynical and kindly.

_'I can't use him like that.'_

_'Why not? Maybe he wants to be used. It's not like you'd do anything to hurt him. And at least you know he loves you.'_

Yes. Yes, he does. And that's why I shouldn't...

"Five?" Sam's voice is getting alarmed again.

I don't want him to worry about me.

I don't want to have to _listen_ to him worry about me.

Damn it.

"Shut up, Sam."

I kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 'choose your own gender [or not] Five', so the story is either m/f for male Five and Sara, male Five and Moonchild, in which case it's also m/m for male Five and Sam. Alternatively it's f/f for Five and Sara and Moonchild, but f/m for Five and Sam. Or you could have a non-binary Five. Not that any of this matters - the main point is, nobody is getting out of this story entirely heterosexual. 
> 
> This story arose from questions myself and other fans were asking on Rofflenet about how Five's changed since the end of Season Five - all of a sudden everybody knows about Five's 'passenger', and people are talking behind Five's back about 'episodes'. If anyone else is up to season six mission twelve then let me know in comments and we'll try to set the ZR world to rights! Thank you!


End file.
